Across the Oceans
by Traxits
Summary: During the ship ride to Costa del Sol, Aeris notices one party member missing, and it's storming something fierce.


**Title** : Across the Oceans  
 **Author** : Traxits  
 **Fandom** : Final Fantasy VII  
 **Rating** : General audiences  
 **Content Notes** : None.  
 **Word Count** : 1103 words.  
 **Summary** : During the ship ride to Costa del Sol, Aeris notices one party member missing, and it's storming something fierce.

 **Author's Note(s)** : Original prompt from Fic_Promptly on Dreamwidth: Final Fantasy VII, Aeris/Tifa, sometimes the sky frightens her

 **[[ … One-Shot … ]]**

She could hear the rain all the way inside the cargo hold. In fact, it had been raining so long that nearly every soldier on the ship had long since passed by her on their way to whatever bunks Shinra offered them. Aeris hadn't let herself climb those stairs above deck, and when Cloud tried to talk her into it, she laughed it off, pointing out that if there was even a single Turk aboard, they'd know her. She had no interest in being the one who cost them their disguises, and he'd eventually agreed before he went back to wandering through the ship, more at ease with these strangers than she'd seen him before.

Strange, how easily he'd slipped into the uniform, especially if he was a First Class who hadn't needed to wear—

She jerked her attention back to the others rather than that ragged wound. It should have long since scabbed over, but instead, seeing Cloud constantly seemed to just keep it open, keep it oozing. She knew wounds. Knew the process they healed themselves with, and so help her, but if she'd been her own patient, she'd have told herself to stop picking at it already.

She sighed, and her head tilted back against the metal sides of the ship. Her helmet was too hot, foggy inside, but she didn't dare pull it off. She'd seen everyone, hadn't she? Everyone except for...

She stared at the steps for a long time, chewing her bottom lip almost raw before she committed to her course. The first step was the hardest, but once she'd started, that was it. Her body climbed them on auto-pilot, her fingers skimming over the metal railing. She couldn't feel the metal through her gloves, but she could feel the wet against the fabric as she got closer to the top. The steps were grates specifically to let the water fall through, and the wind was bad enough that for a moment, she was grateful for the stupid helmet. She squinted anyway, like that would help, her head just barely poking out above deck.

There. Across the deck, Tifa stood. The water fell in sheets over her, but she'd pulled her helmet off, and her eyes were closed as she tilted her head back up toward the sky. Aeris's stomach churned, and then lurched as she worked on pulling herself up, and she stayed there for a moment, just breathing, her fingers trembling as she pressed them flat against the deck. No one else was out there though, so she didn't have to worry about being seen, and she pushed herself up to her feet after she'd dragged in a breath or two.

The ship moved under her feet, but that didn't startle her nearly as much as the fact that she couldn't tell where the water ended and the sky began. She'd noticed it in Junon of course, but here, there were no buildings to lean back against, no metal to break up the horizon, no anything. It was just her and the sky and so much water—

A hand wrapped around her elbow, and she gasped faintly, her eyes focusing on Tifa's before she managed a little laugh. Light and easy, like she was supposed to sound, and she let her hand turn enough to hold onto Tifa too. "Thanks," she called, just to be heard over the storm, and Tifa tilted her head, smiled, and guided her over to the rail of the ship. Aeris's stomach clenched hard at the sight of all that water under them, but she swallowed it all back, and she pretended that she was out here for... whatever it was Tifa was.

The other woman had turned back toward the sky, and she was soaked to the bone, her uniform so wet that Aeris wasn't sure they'd ever get it dry again. Then again, she supposed her own would be joining it soon enough.

"This storm is wonderful," Tifa murmured, and for a moment, Aeris wasn't sure she'd heard her properly. Wonderful? This torrential downfall of water from a sky that Aeris was still half-sure would swallow her up if she wasn't careful?

But there was something about seeing Tifa like this, soaked and smiling and even her heavy fall of hair whipping around them both. Aeris's own hair would probably do much the same if she'd let it down. For a moment, she flexed her hands against the railing, trying to imagine what that would feel like. She'd felt wind of course, when she was above the Plate, and sometimes, when it was particularly bad weather, the winds below would pick up enough to be a problem. But nothing had ever been like this, and she'd never gotten the hang of the way water poured from the sky.

Snow was tolerable, she supposed, but this rain...

Tifa, on the other hand, seemed to just be enjoying it, and Aeris managed a smile of her own before she finally reached up and pulled her helmet off.

The water was colder than she'd expected, and a startled noise slipped out of her throat. Tifa laughed, looking back over at her again, and Aeris closed her eyes rather than meet Tifa's gaze.

Mistake, because all it served to do was make the motion of the waves more noticeable. She clutched at the railing, and Tifa reached over to steady her.

"Don't think," she said, and her voice cut through the wind when she was this close. "Just... feel it. You're an Ancient, connected to nature and all, aren't you?"

Aeris managed a little laugh, and even she could hear that it was wrong, too close to hysterical. Tifa's hand gained a little weight against her hip.

"Supposedly," she said, and she shook her head as she looked up at Tifa. "You're closer to this than I am though."

Tifa's smile widened, and she reached up to push Aeris's hair back from her face. Her fingers— she'd apparently pulled her own gloves off— were as cold as the rain water. "Grew up in the mountains," she said. "I hadn't... realized how much I missed it."

Aeris's brow furrowed at the thought, at being even closer to that sky, and she swallowed before she reached down and tangled her fingers with Tifa's. "Come on," she said, and she managed a smile. A real one, even. "The others are already below."

Tifa looked longingly back up at the sky, her eyes closing for a heartbeat. Then there was a crack of thunder, and when Aeris jumped, Tifa nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Let's go below."


End file.
